Sayings
Issue #97 Posted  Sep., 2015

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." -- Winston Churchill, UK prime minister

"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife." -- Thomas Jefferson (1821

"A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory." -- Mark Twain

"Let us not pray to be sheltered from danger, but to be fearless when facing it." -- Rabindranath Tagore

"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs." -- Alexei Sayle

"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann.

"Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind." -- James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 179

"Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

"I think that I shall never see A lampost lovely as a tree;  A tree that grows so green and tall  Let's hang a Lib from one and all." With apologies to Joyce Kilmer

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers." -- John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 176

"We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again." -- George Washington

"The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country." -- Benjamin Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, 1749

"Consistency is a virtue, even if it means you're an asshole to the very end." -- Jason Burke

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." -- Groucho Marx

"To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed." -- Thomas Jefferson, Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, 1818

"It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country." -- Noah Webster, On Education of Youth in America, 1790

"[W]e ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own." -- George Washington, letter to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, 1795

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." -- Thomas Paine

"There is not in the whole science of politics a more solid or a more important maxim than this -- that of all governments, those are the best, which, by the natural effect of their constitutions, are frequently renewed or drawn back to their first principles." -- James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

"The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 10, 1787

"Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice." -- Thomas Paine, Letter Addressed to the Addressers on thee Late Proclamation, 1792

"A universal peace ... is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." - -James Madison (1792)

"No morn ever dawned more favorable than ours did; and no day was every more clouded than the present! Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm." -- George Washington, letter to James Madison, 1786>

"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself." -- James Madison

"The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest purposes. Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting an inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchm[en]t can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other." -- George Washington, fragments of the Draft First Inaugural Address, 1789

"Liberals don't understand the connection between their political beliefs and the consequences of their political beliefs. When that connection becomes clear to them, they are no longer liberals." -- Paul K.

"They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men." -- John Adams

"A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right." -- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

"To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the accomplishment of this noble end and aim." -- James Wilson, Of the Study of the Law in the United States, 1790

"The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions that there shall always be a twelve-month between the ingross-ing a bill & passing it: that it should then be offered to its passage without changing a word: and that if circumstances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of both houses instead of a bare majority." -- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, 1787

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" -- Thomas Jefferson (1781)

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom." -- John Adams

"As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight." -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit." -- James Madison

"And it is no less true, that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice." -- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." -- Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, 1766

"A universal peace is to be feared, it is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." -- James Madison

"The power of the people pervading the proposed system, together with the strong confederation of the states, will form an adequate security against every danger that has been apprehended." -- John Dickinson, Letters of Fabius, 1788

"But the safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult; for it need not be observed that there are pretended as well as just causes of war." -- John Jay, Federalist No. 4, 1787

"There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness." -- George Washington

"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." -- Thomas Paine, The Crisis, No. 1, 1776

"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787

"There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness." -- George Washington (1793)

"To render the justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed." -- James Madison, Second Inaugural Address, 1813

"This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ'd they are best contented." -- Benjamin Franklin

"It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that the nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it, nay that absolute monarchs, will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for purposes and objects merely personal." -- John Jay, Federalist No. 4, 1787

"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right." -- Thomas Jefferson

"There are no failed experiments, sometimes you learn what not to do." -- Thomas Edison

"Nothing just happens in politics. If something happens you can be sure it was planned that way." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence." -- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

"[T]he government must be a weak one indeed, if it should forget that the good of the whole can only be promoted by advancing the good of each of the parts or members which compose the whole." -- John Jay, Federalist No. 64, 1788

"Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." -- George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Courts must decide on the operation of each. So, if a law be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply." -- John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy. — Daniel Webster [June 1, 1837]

"Statistics, in the main, are used by scoundrels to confound fools." -- Jeff Cooper

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." -- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, 177

"The experience of treaties being broken with impunity provide an afflicting lesson to mankind how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith; and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any immediate interest and passion." -- Federalist No. 15 (1787)

"The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 21, 1787

"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune." -- James Madison

"Islam: a system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices." -- Winston Churchill

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." -- James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 1792

"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it." -- George Washington, letter to James Madison, 178

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Spartans never ask how many the enemy be, only where they are!" -- Unknown

"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." -- John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The maximum range of an excuse is zero meters." -- Unknown

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased." -- Alexander Hamilton, American founding father.

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- Thomas Jefferson

"We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality" -- Ayn Rand

"How wonderful for governments that the people they administer do not think" -- Adolph Hitler

"We should not forget that the spark which ignited the American Revolution was caused by the British attempt to confiscate the firearms of the colonists." -- Patrick Henry

"The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed." -- 2nd Amendment to U.S. Constitution

"A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims." -- Ayn Rand

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